Commentary: The letter ‘O’ at Camp Verde schools

Camp Verde Middle School’s seventh grade and eighth grade boys and girls basketball teams both opened their season recently with wins over Oak Creek School. Coach Stone said the girls played with a lot of intensity and hustle. (Photo courtesy Camp Verde Unified School District)

From 9 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. Dec. 5 will be Camp Verde High School’s second blood drive. If you are 16 or 17 and meet the requirements, you are encouraged to donate.

Parental consent forms can be picked up in the main office, the attendance office, or from Ms. Westfield in room 101. Your form must be signed and turned in before you donate.

Friday Camps are now available to High School Students. Many classes available such as photography, art, technology, etc. Please come to the main office for more information.

Food Bank

This month at the food bank, 10 South Verde students handed out food boxes to individuals in need. The staff at the food bank was ecstatic as they praised our students for being diligent while providing customers with first-class service.

New Look

South Verde High School has been getting a new look. I would like to thank our wonderful maintenance staff for painting the outside of our building, replacing the roof, trimming the trees and installing a much needed sign.

Great job CVMS teams!

Camp Verde Middle School’s seventh grade and eighth grade boys and girls basketball teams both opened their season recently with wins over Oak Creek School.

Coach Stone said the girls played with a lot of intensity and hustle. He was pleased with their first game. Annaliese Cordova scored 10 points, Madison Morris scored 8 and Zandi Zimmerman scored 5.

Coach Shanks was impressed with the second half surge after being behind in the first half. The boys really caught on in the second half with better passing and seeing the court. Devon James scored 10 points and Cutter Frisch scored 5 points.

Recently, our elementary school robotics team, the Cyber Cowboys, got a chance to work with older robotics enthusiasts.

They traveled to Coconino High School in Flagstaff to meet with the CocoNuts, the robotics team from CHS, who helped our Cyber Cowboys with their upcoming mission for competition.

The day was set up to help teams from Arizona practice their missions and presentations as though it was the actual tournament.

Our robotics team members participated in a scrimmage as well as watched and practiced their project presentation.

Part of the First Lego League Robotics Tournament involves the creation of a project and presenting the project to the judges, a great way to introduce public speaking to the participants.

In prior years, students have created projects such as turning kitchen scraps into bacon and creating a community manure -pile for gardening. This years’ project involves creating a water catchment and filtration system to be used at our school for our community garden and other uses.

Watching other teams practice their presentations helped our students analyze what works and what doesn’t work well. We are excited for the young robotics designers and we can’t wait to hear about the tournament!

Wilderness Survival students prepare for emergencies

Mr. Wattenbarger, a 5th grade teacher at the elementary school, has been running a Friday Camp program to teach wilderness preparedness and survival.

Recently, he focused on first aide — teaching basic lifesaving for themselves or someone they might be with in the wilderness including hands-free CPR (students were encouraged to attend an official CPR class as this one was meant for wilderness survival situations), wound care, different types of emergencies that can happen in various weather conditions, bandaging and splinting of fractures and making a litter to be able to move someone.

4th Graders report on AZ Native American Tribes

Each year, Mrs. Reddell’s fourth grade students work in groups to create posters that inform and educate each other on Native American tribes of Arizona.

This year, they have really outdone themselves. As those of you who went to school in Arizona for 4th grade will remember, social studies for this grade focuses entirely on our state — history, geography, agriculture, climate, and people.

For the first quarter project, students focused on people, working in groups to research and create educational posters on each of the Native American tribes that call Arizona home. These tribes include Hualapai, Pima, Tohono O’Odham, Yavapai, Zuni, Apache, Navajo, and Hopi.

The posters encompass various cultural aspects of the tribes including tools, weapons, clothing, food, housing, and art. In addition, each poster has a map indicating where the tribe was/is located in our state, and a written report detailing more about the tribe.

Staff breakfast at the elementary school

It has been a tradition for many years to host quarterly staff breakfasts. Each year, four dates are chosen and staff from various grade levels and departments team up to throw a morning feast for the rest of the staff.

It’s a great way to spend a little time with grown-ups before starting the work day. Today was our first breakfast, and it was delicious.

Please feel free to join us for our upcoming breakfasts: Jan. 18, March 8 and April 26.

The letter O

In the Developmental Preschool, Mrs. Mazur’s the students worked on the letter O this week. We ate Oreos and oatmeal bars. We are also learning Thanksgiving songs.

We have already begun implementing some of the techniques into all of our therapy groups. We open our sessions by reading a quick story and follow with print based activities whether the focus is articulation, phonology, or language.

We are also beginning in depth vocabulary exposure for all our students. We’re excited and hope to see our efforts generalize to our students reading skills.

Affirmation

In High School, in Ms. Warren’s writing lessons she has been spending extra time on how to write an affirmation.

Trying to get the students to state their qualities and their classmates/friends qualities. Moving the students from “You are cool” to “Thank you for helping me with ....” or “I like the way you...” or “You make me feel...”

Getting students to understand what makes some good at something or what it is they do that makes a good friend, then to verbalize those thoughts is very difficult.

In the ESS Department, ESS Parent University had a great meeting on Nov. 14. The parents learned about Child Find and Student Study Teams. We had two guest speakers on Tuesday, Dr. Douvikas and Dr. Worssam. Dr. Douvikas spoke on the Student Study Team and Title 1 programs.